


Look at Me, I'm Here With You on Earth

by The_Ineffable_Zephyr



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Dining at the Ritz (Good Omens), First Kiss, Fluff, Lyrical prose, M/M, Male Pronouns, No Dialogue, Post-Not-Pocalypse, Post-Scene: The Ritz (Good Omens), Prayer, Romance, ao3feed-ineffablehusbandz, but what is gender when you're ethereal and occult beings?, ethereal experience, internal experiences of a certain angel and a certain demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21799183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Ineffable_Zephyr/pseuds/The_Ineffable_Zephyr
Summary: For Aziraphale and Crowley, dining at the Ritz after the world didn’t end is a spiritual experience for which they need no words. Here, I attempt to describe their inner worlds. No plot, just emotions and physical/ethereal sensations. I switch between each of their perspectives quite frequently, but I figure after they’ve inhabited each other’s forms, things might just get a little slippery?"Aziraphale is drawn in to this full-body experience of sitting here with Crowley after the end of the world. And in this moment, freed from the impulse to look upward, there is a way his mind feels: at once taught and relaxed - poised. His body is the central column of light, vibrating slowly enough to have a physical form, but fast enough to become pure light at a moment’s notice. There is a fluttering, soft but insistent, that might be his wings, but might be his heart. And also there is a tingling, a barely-there sensation, an almost forgotten part of himself, just there at the back of his head."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 49





	Look at Me, I'm Here With You on Earth

Aziraphale looks up every time he thinks about Her. 

Reverent and sacred, that baring of his throat, that closing of his eyes in prayer. Even when there was only Heaven and Her essence was all around them, _up_ still felt like the direction to cast his adoring gaze.

But also it’s a look up every time he thinks about “his side” and the fleet of angels who never liked him, never looked out for him. Only down on him. Flicking his eyes upward to indicate The Great Plan, the unknowable playbook that has directed his life and left a knot in his stomach. Until now.

Now, after it all, sitting in The Ritz. It feels like anything but blasphemy to keep his eyes trained forward. He can revel in simply looking straight ahead. (Or maybe slightly down, to account for Crowley’s posture.) 

Ah, yes, now Aziraphale can relax a little, let go of the nervous peripheral vision. Give in to one, only one focal point. There is a way, when he concentrates on something pleasurable, that the edges rush in and a dark circumference steadies his vision. It’s not tunnel vision exactly, but a frame to consider the picture before him. The planes and ridges of a face he knows so well. Mouth and hair of a red that radiates such warmth, the heat of life.

Aziraphale is drawn in to this full-body experience of sitting here with Crowley after the end of the world. And in this moment, freed from the impulse to look upward, there is a way his mind feels: at once taught and relaxed - poised. His body is the central column of light, vibrating slowly enough to have a physical form, but fast enough to become pure light at a moment’s notice. There is a fluttering, soft but insistent, that might be his wings, but might be his heart. And also there is a tingling, a barely-there sensation, an almost forgotten part of himself, just there at the back of his head.

Crowley, too, seems to be in a particular state, sinking deeply into his chair with an unworldly weight. But Aziraphale knows, with everything in his being, this is not the weight of Heaven or Hell. Crowley is relaxed, at ease almost. Enough to not rankle at being called “good.” Enough to smile and close the gap between their glasses. There is certainly a weight, Aziraphale thinks, not of despair but of security. It holds them both here, a precious centripetal force. They are the center. And the world goes on - thank God, no, thank Adam - it goes on and on and oh, they belong right here. In this world, recently recreated, recently salvaged from destruction. 

Crowley, who has forever been squinting at a divine light he cannot access, who has been raking his eyes over the earth for centuries, looking for purpose and safety, sits behind his sunglasses. In the filtered sunlight of the Ritz, he feels his eyes relax. He almost flicks a glance upwards. Wonders if he should say “thanks” or “piss off” to Her for not, in fact, testing the humans to destruction. 

In a nearby dimension his wings twitch like they’ve been spoken to. He glances right, always to the right, and senses more than sees that his angel is—what’s the word? He has to squint again, for Aziraphale is incandescent. Crowley lets out a breath, lets that light seep into him, wings itching, heart beating rather more than necessary.

Ah yes, let them look at each other and sink deeper into this truth, finding stops at fondness, delight, and longing. This feels a little like falling - not with abandon, but with freedom. Like they could unfurl wings and stay aloft, buoyant with that bright, bright thing sparking between them. That thing that needs no name but that ignites between them as their hands touch. 

Lunch has been eaten, thoroughly enjoyed, and now the world made anew awaits them. As they step out onto the sidewalk, hands held softly but firmly, Crowley notices how his angel looks around more. Aziraphale has always had that bright-eyed wonder looking out at the world, eager to see its goodness. He has always been taking in the world with that insatiable hunger of curiosity. And perhaps a little desperation used to creep in - it wasn’t proper, after all, to like the pleasures of this world quite so much. But something has shifted. Been let loose, maybe. Been slowed down to a different pace all their own. No more looking over his shoulder, no more scanning for danger around every curve.

Just looking around at the world and all its beauty that is theirs for the taking. It’s enough and it’s so much. 

They walk side by side into their London, noticing the weight and heat of each other. Breathing in the late summer air, warming them outside and in. They look steadily ahead until they can’t help but turn to and towards. A checking in, a breathing in.

And their eyes meet. And hold. When they no longer have to look around or up, they discover that particular pleasure and truth in the well-worn phrase, “they only have eyes for each other.” This quite complicates walking. Their shoulders bump, necks arc together, sending foreheads to practically brush. They are careening into each other, and so each step in the world draws them forwards but also inwards and towards, with a bubbling, conspiratorial desire. 

They are stumbling and giddy with that shared feeling they’ve been circling around for centuries. Now it has finally been let loose and they are breathless with it. Absolutely gasping and laughing and overcome with it. And they just don’t care. Face-to-face is all that matters now, vision a tunnel, bodies sparking alive and oh so human.

Their noses touch, eyes a blurry distance, lips smiling in one moment and questioning the next. But only for a moment until the question is answered: close the distance and just feel soft lips against each other. 

This is a moment to pause. 

Tempting as it is, Crowley has not stopped time. Instead, they find the human way to disrupt the flow of temporal experience: with a kiss they always meant to have and were never meant to have. 

No one catches fire or explodes. It’s really quite the inverse chemical reaction: a softening, a melting, a melding. Tenderest skin, sliding and tasting and yielding. They might dissolve into each other, might just give in to this heat between them and cease to exist as distinct and solid matter.

Let them kiss for a while. Let them forget about the world because they get to keep the world. 

Held so close to each other, they continue forward once more, cutting a wide path on the sidewalk. They are so raucous with a joy known only to them, others passerby give a wide berth. They don’t notice, now that their world can be this, only this. 

At last, they fumble into the bookshop and fall against the closed door in a tangle of limbs. 

The light inside is soft, soft like their hearts so exposed and made new. Dust motes dance across the books. It could be described as angelic, but Crowley, ever studious of one angel, is not thinking in general terms about Heaven. He is thinking only in possessives, in specifics. Here is his one angel, in his arms at last, pressed against the door to his 200-year-old shop that ceased to exist yesterday. 

He can sense the heat and vibration rising from his angel because he is the matched vessel for it. Each pulse of light emerging from himself creates a matching vibration in Aziraphale, which is then transmitted back to him. Together, they are instruments resonating to one another’s notes. They will play for each other the most intimate music. They will feel in their earthly bodies the singing of their wings.

Aziraphale is full and fully of this moment: of heat and music and Crowley’s mouth exploring his. And he knows now at last, with Crowley’s weight pressing him against his own door, that truly he belongs right here. Not up there. And Aziraphale feels that weight settle, years upon years of his feet on earth and his eyes cast towards the sky. Now he belongs, knowing in his body the rightness of being in this world. His insubstantial spirit practically sparkling with its connection to the earth and to this other being before him. This once-ethereal, now-occult, forever-of-this-earth being is his, all his.

At last, Aziraphale pulls back slowly, ever-so-slightly, allowing himself space to look up. Forget the contradictions of God and Her Plan. Just look up and find Crowley. 

It is a moment and they breathe into it. He gently but firmly slides the glasses off Crowley’s face. 

And Crowley is flooded with a love and a light he thought he’d lost. Reverent eyes the color of the sea find eyes the color of the sun. They send the most pious, the most pure form of prayer: a prayer of thanks for what has already been given.

—

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally inspired by a post on Tumblr (which, of course, I can't find) with GIFs of Aziraphale looking up at various points in the show, each time having something to do with God or Heaven. 
> 
> After I wrote this, I came across some gorgeous art on Tumblr by @maplevogel, which captures the sparkly, gravitational feeling between them quite well: https://maplevogel.tumblr.com/post/186805037253/mushy-mushy-feelings-as-a-nightingale-sing-in-the 
> 
> Thanks for reading. I love comments, feedback, and critiques (I was an English major, so I can take it). 
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @tickety-boo-af


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